TURNAROUNDS in ALL 12 KEYS

A turnaround is a kind of musical cadence, a progression of chords that provides harmonic "punctuation" in a composition. Turnarounds are used to establish a tonal center (or key), to mark the end of a section of a tune, to return to the beginning of the previous section or to prepare for the beginning of a new section. A turnaround can also serve as an independent repeating section of a tune, often occurring in the form of a coda.

The harmonic material of many standard tunes consists of nothing more than variations of turnarounds. They can be thought of as essential formulas for understanding how compositions from the mainstream jazz and popular repertoire "work" harmonically. Though there are many jazz composers who've extended the language far beyond these harmonic formulas, the ability to understand and make creative use of turnarounds is essential for the jazz improvisor.

We have a LOT of different versions of turnaround tracks available for you to work with. Click your instrument for more details.

Play-along tracks are pre-recorded accompaniments for jazz musicians. Each track leaves musical space for the user to "fill in" or play-along. For example, if you are a pianist, you can practice with bass and drums; if you play the saxophone, you can work with the whole trio (piano, bass and drums).

PlayJazzNow.com has tracks for all instrumentalists and singers. Our play-along tracks are great for helping you master the fundamentals of jazz improvisation — and you get to play with a world class professional rhythm section.

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PlayJazzNow.com was created BY musicians FOR musicians. There's no big corporation behind the scenes here. Our tracks are simple mp3 files; we've not used any security encoding or other tricks to prevent users from copying or sharing our tracks.

Instead, we appeal to your sense of fair play and camaraderie. We've set up our pricing to make it affordable for any musician with a computer to purchase our play-alongs. If folks don't pay for the tracks they use we will not be able to maintain this site and continually add new tracks (which is our intention). So, please, use the play-along tracks for yourself however you like. And tell your friends to visit us and get their own! Thanks.

A turnaround is a kind of musical cadence, a progression of chords that provides harmonic "punctuation" in a composition. Turnarounds are used to establish a tonal center (or key), to mark the end of a section of a tune, to return to the beginning of the previous section or to prepare for the beginning of a new section. A turnaround can also serve as an independent repeating section of a tune, often occurring in the form of a coda.

The harmonic material of many standard tunes consists of nothing more than variations of turnarounds. They can be thought of as essential formulas for understanding how compositions from the mainstream jazz and popular repertoire "work" harmonically. Though there are many jazz composers who've extended the language far beyond these harmonic formulas, the ability to understand and make creative use of turnarounds is essential for the jazz improvisor.